Words by Master Chen Zhonghua
… Never together. Every part of your body must be broken up. And they work together as a unit of work. Not as one piece. (like a machine with gears) You work all together but with many pieces.
… If you push. It becomes a conflict. Then it becomes who’s power is stronger.
… Don’t put it there. Get used to putting your foot here. (Shows movement) If you train like that, you have this automatic motion. Because, whenever you have any intent, that is why it is called ‘the intent is going’, there is only intent. So the intent is actually a fixed pattern. So for example, you chair. It has an intent to hold you. It works because it does not know it. If it knows, the chair cannot hold you , because it will move. In training, every time you touch me, it is here. (Points at foot) So, if I then push with you, it is there. And I don’t know it. And you don’t know it. That is why you can never counter it. You cannot counter anything that I do not know. The wrong intent means: When you push, I have an intent of trying to put my foot somewhere. If you don’t know it knows its own place. Nobody can stop it. So in training you have to find that place, consistently train. If it doesn’t work, you don’t care. You just train. Until it works. (Question from Charlie: : So, it is not intention until it just happens by itself?) Master Chen: Yes. (Question by Lee: You don’t just try and do things, you just do the form?) Master Chen: No. You train the intention until you can do it without you knowing it. By that time it becomes truly intention. That is why it is called the intent. Like, you did not intent to, but your body did it anyway. But why does the body do it? Because you trained for it. At the time of application, your body does not know. Because the training of the last 10 years are so. So although you have no intention, the intention is very strong. It is 10 years of intention. So if you intend to do something on the spot. You see here? I do this. You see it? (Shows foot movement) It doesn’t happen al that fast. You don’t know. Because it is built in my body, you wouldn’t know. So another way is saying this is: You are trying to train your body until it becomes a machine. I mean, it cannot be stopped. Because whatever you do, the body reacts the same way. You can’t change anything. So the Taiji ability is to entice you to do things you do not think of. And that is easy to do. Because humans have a conflict in the body. The body has an intrinsic system and the brain plays it. So, if I play with your brain actions, your brain actions will actually fight against your own body. And that is why it is called “The harmony of the body and mind”. So when they are in tune, you cannot be defeated. So the intent of the chair is harmonised in, embedded in the structure. You can never change their structure, unless you use force that is bigger that it. But if the chair has a mind, so when you want to sit on it, the chair does this (demonstrates action) and then it will break. So, “to have Harmony” sounds very nice and mysterious. But in reality is: Train until you don’t know what you are doing. You could do YiLu while you are talking to people and never mis a beat. You could get into a conversation or a debate, but never miss anything. Because the body knows everything already. That’s what we want to do. Anything that is learned through understanding is useless. But you have to learn through understanding, and then embed the understanding into your bones, between the tissue. And that is what training is about.
Words by Master Sun Zhonghua:
…Stamping the foot during ‘Buddhas Warrior’ stance is not encouraged. But it is also not discouraged.
